


Carol of the Bells

by rotrude



Series: Carol of the Bells [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur decorate a Christmas tree,</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carol of the Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Kindly beta'd by dk323.  
> Written for merlin_advent

Having put the tripod in place, Merlin shoulders the big Christmas tree and lugs it down two flights of stairs – the narrow service ones – and down along a corridor he can't seem to see the end of. Lolloping along with as brave a face as he can, he manages not to succumb to the weight of the six-foot-six arboreal imitation and to get it where it's meant to be: the big reception room downstairs. 

He might have brushed a few branches against the precious damask wallpaper covering the walls as he steamed ahead, but there are no tears or signs of his passage so he calls himself content. He's also successfully lugged the tree where it ought to be.

It takes him half an hour of laborious construction, involving inching under the listing tree to correct its slant, to get the tree to stand upright. But, at long last, the tree is indeed up, not leaning either to the left or right, and all that's left for him to do is to decorate it. 

There are six boxes at his disposal to choose the ornaments from. He's had a look at those boxes and he knows. Actually, there are so many odds and ends he could probably decorate two or three trees if he wanted. 

He takes a moment to really be angry at the waste of money that's gone into tree decorating over the years and to think about how many kids would want this stuff for Christmas when they can't have it, before he settles down to work.

Because this isn't one of the public chambers, Merlin's been given free rein. No decorators are needed to put up a tree in here, just himself. It's a question of traffic. Nobody but staffers ever comes in here; the public, down to the press, would never see this particular room or the ones adjoining. So Merlin's enough for it. Upon tasking Merlin with this though, Gaius gave him a lecture about good taste and simplicity, together with a series of Christmas issues of home décor magazines.

Merlin reckons that years of experience doing up his own tree at home more than qualify him to replicate the task. But the nature of his job considered, most people are hostile to that idea. 

Putting earphones in his ears and pressing the play button before slipping his phone in his pocket, Merlin launches his seasonal play list. That will put him in the mood for festive decorating.

Moving to the beat of the Carol of the Bells as performed by a Ukrainian orchestra, Merlin's already managed to install the fairy lights and to hang a number of baubles, antiques which instil in him a sacred fear of breaking them, when someone darts into his field of vision, snapping his fingers at him. 

Recognition strikes him in a moment. How could it not? He's seen that face time and again on the covers of magazines and on the telly, as well as from afar once during his first month at the job, for him to fail to realise who the obnoxious finger snapper is. 

Merlin cuts off his music, pulls out his earphones, letting them dangle around his neck, and says, “I was doing nothing wrong!” 

“If you call a rainbow Christmas tree nothing wrong,” the finger snapper says. “Then I concede. By the way, aren't you forgetting something?”

The moment he's asked, Merlin gets what he's missed. Yet he isn't deferring to anyone snapping his fingers at him when he was doing a perfectly good job at decorating the bloody hulking tree he lugged around for the best part of the morning. “These are the decorations the staff gave Gaius to use. So I'm using them.”

“Have you ever been taught that garish never works?”

“It's Christmas; of course garish works!” Merlin says with more vehemence than is needed, given the subject. It's just that he doesn't approve of finger snapping.

“And you're still not addressing me properly.”

Merlin gets snippy then. “No, Your Highness, I'm not and do you know why?”

Prince Arthur smiles instead of thundering at Merlin's outburst. “Actually I've no idea why you're so set against protocol or why you sound so angry.”

“I'm angry because I carried this bloody tree--” Merlin indicates it with a sweep of his hand-- “A tree that's taller and probably heavier than you, all around the palace and if you're not aware this palace is a big one then you're missing a few screws in that head of yours,” Merlin says, catching his breath just so he can continue on his tirade. “I'm angry because you waltz in without having done anything to help anyone while people busy themselves to make your home look pretty--”

“I no longer live here,” Prince Arthur says. “Haven't since I left for uni.”

“And I'm angry,” Merlin continues as if he hadn't been interrupted, “because you're having a dig at my decorating skills while you've been sitting on your royal Pendragon arse and done nothing all morning!”

Prince Arthur smiles at that, wide and pleased, eyes sparking like tinder, to the point Merlin suspects him of being unhinged. He does suspect even more when Prince Arthur says, “We'll have to re-do the tree together, then. Because clearly you have no taste – red and orange, really – and so that you won't think me tyrannical if I object to your choices on simple grounds of good taste.”

“You want to what?” Merlin asks.

“Are you hard of hearing?” Prince Arthur asks. “All that listening to music with earphones on must have done it.”

“No, I'm not hard of hearing,” Merlin says. “It's just that... You want to decorate the tree? With me?”

“Yeah,” Prince Arthur says. “Someone's got to correct your drive to turn this poor tree into the winner of the award for best psychedelic tree of the year.”

“I hope you're not going for those all black ornaments trees that the mags Uncle Gaius gave me feature as the height of elegance?”

“All black!” Prince Arthur's mouth twists in distaste. “What no! I was thinking monochrome red, or something along those lines.”

Merlin chuckles. “Pendragon red?”

“Can't help it if it's also Christmassy,” the Prince says.

“Oh and now you're all proud that you've co-opted Christmas,” Merlin says, mouth tilting into a grin that fails at being mocking.

“Nah.” Prince Arthur makes a sign with his hand, eyeing the bauble Merlin's been holding all along. “I'm not the evil dictator of festivities present and future.”

Merlin hands over the bauble; their fingers brush. “Yet, you're asking for a do-over of my fatigues. Can't I persuade you to keep the gold baubles at least?”

Prince Arthur's mouth twitches. “We can discuss that.”

With that they start working on the tree in almost silence, Arthur only speaking up when he needs to object to Merlin's ornamentation project. The plan is simple. They do the tree lights again, removing those that gave off reddish vibes and adding transparent ones. 

By mutual accord they start at the base of the trunk and work their way up, having to resort to a foldaway ladder to get the top done as well as the bottom half. Humming under their breaths, they wrap lights around every major branch, moving from the trunk to the tip and back, bumping into each other as they go, laughing when they do.

Lights dealt with, they remove some of the baubles Merlin hung, and add a layering of mono-tone garlands each, going for a variety of those so as not to make the tree all samey.

“See,” Prince Arthur says, wrapping a ribbon around the pointy end of a branch. “This is much nicer.”

“You're saying that because I capitulated about the colours,” Merlin says, hanging a pretty glass bauble he's so careful with that his hands shake.

“Nah,” Prince Arthur says. “It's because this version isn't hurting my eyes.”

Merlin spaces a few more baubles around, just so there's no crowded areas next to near empty ones. It's a thing that he's learnt with time; as a kid he used to just hang his decorations haphazardly. The result wasn't always the best but his mum let him have at it as he best pleased. Not that Merlin had the resources the Royal Family has back when he was little. His baubles came from 3x2 Marks and Spencer’s offers or straight from flea markets.

Reflecting on that, Merlin pats a crystal tear-drop that looks like it's made of Venetian glass, and most probably is, and sighs as his thoughts go back to the past. As he does, he inadvertently dislodges the tear-drop and it crashes to the floor, a tiny cascade of little glass fragments showering his feet.

“Oh, my god, I'm so sorry,” Merlin says. “That was probably an antique. Hell, I'll try and pay for a replacement if I can. If not, I can promise I'll let myself be indentured to slave labour.”

Although Merlin is mortified – picking at a prince is one thing, smashing heirlooms another – Arthur doesn't seem to want to take Merlin's guilt seriously. “Don't you think that's a bit tragic?”

“No!” Merlin says, stomping a foot to make a point and only succeeding in grounding the glass shards into fine Venetian glass dust. “I've just shattered a family heirloom. Maybe Queen Victoria held it or something. I'm so so--”

“I don't care,” Prince Arthur says, putting down the tiny flower he was going to stick through the branches. 

“Why, thank you,” Merlin says. “Here I was, trying to apologise and there you go saying that you don't give a royal rat's arse about--”

Prince Arthur puts both hands on Merlin's shoulders and squeezes. “Merlin, stop.” He catches Merlin's eyes with his, though he's quick to drop them when Merlin does stop babbling. He continues though, saying, “Look, I'm not fussed about the ornaments, I can say with confidence I don't care about them. And I certainly won't ask you to repay me for their loss.”

“But--”

“No buts, Merlin,” Prince Arthur says. “It's my fault anyway. If I hadn't taken the piss, you wouldn't have broken anything and you wouldn't be feeling guilty now.”

“You had nothing to do with my clumsiness,” Merlin says, admitting a truth he can't but stare in the face. “I mean I can probably blame you for representing the idea of cosmic prattishness, but that's more of a general truth and didn't cause my flailing awkwardness.”

Prince Arthur continues on his own tack, ignoring Merlin's rant. “I know I was making you nervous. But at least we were connecting...” Arthur rolls his eyes. “On some level.”

“I don't get it,” Merlin says, pursuing his own thought process just as Prince Arthur has been doing. “I'm abjectly apologising, so why aren't you accepting my apologies when I'm not being anti-monarchical?”

“Because,” Prince Arthur says, “I pushed and baited you. And I did because... Hell, but it's difficult getting to talk to you.”

Merlin doesn't understand how this conversation's got here. “Er, I'm sorry I'm not sure I'm on the same page as you anymore. Or that I ever was, come to think of it.”

“I was trying to talk to you,” Prince Arthur says at an unprincely pitch. “Because I've seen you around. How do you think I know your name? And I like you. But you don't look my way. Ever. So when I saw you carrying this tree around, I thought, duh, his hands are metaphorically tied. He's stuck with the tree for the next few hours so maybe...” Prince Arthur goes the colour of ripe plums. His colouring now goes well with the tree. “So maybe I can use the time ask him out. The magic of Christmas and all that. I thought you' be more....” Arthur paused then he said, “Inclined towards general good will while you were at the tree.”

Merlin smacks a hand to his forehead and starts laughing, shoulders heaving.

Prince Arthur's face falls, visibly, comically, his expression morphing right under Merlin's eyes as a character's in a cartoon would. He puffs out little jets of air like a whale and then straightens and goes very upright and still. Merlin can see he's going for circumspect now but he's not quite succeeding. Despite his attempt at pulling himself together, Merlin can read Arthur's disappointment in his face. He's pouting. Here Merlin is faced with a pouting prince. That sobers him though he's not quite sure what to make of Arthur. “You're not pulling my leg.”

“Do you think I'd humiliate myself in order to do that?” Prince Arthur asks, looking in Merlin's general direction but not _at_ him.

Merlin's eyebrows climb upwards. “Is the thought of going out with me humiliating?” 

“No,” Prince Arthur says, his tone rich and formal as he explains. “That would be... an honour. Being rejected, though, is humiliating.”

“I haven't actually rejected you.”

“You were laughing.”

“Well, you surprised me,” Merlin says. “And it's odd thinking that you would want to go out with me.”

“So you haven't rejected me?” Prince Arthur asks, a frown on his forehead now.

“You sound like a BBC drama reject,” Merlin says. “Mr Pratdarcy.”

“You're nit-picking word choice now,” Prince Arthur says, pout back in full-fledged form. Merlin can't tell whether he's annoyed and the pout is for real or whether he's amused and the pout's self-caricature.

“No,” Merlin says, throwing his shoulders out. “I'm making a point.”

“And that would be?” Prince Arthur asks.

Merlin throws a spare strand of tinsel around Prince Arthur's neck and says, “That you're awfully formal sounding but yeah, we can go out together. If you were a normal person I'd invite you to the closest Starbucks so we could have one of their newest seasonal concoctions but I see that can't happen so... ball in your court.”

Arthur, Merlin feels he can call him Arthur if they're meeting informally, smiles a high wattage smile, not the kind he reserves for the press, but a real unrestrained smile that's got nothing poised about it. “I have a wonderful idea,” he says but when Merlin presses to know what it is, Arthur goes all secretive and says, “I'll tell you in good time. Santa's elves are working on it. Now pass the tip.”


End file.
